


Look, The Lord Said

by Anonymous



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: First Time, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-04
Updated: 2009-06-04
Packaged: 2017-10-02 10:01:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Look, the Lord said, and they saw. Except when they didn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Look, The Lord Said

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Jo](http://penm.livejournal.com)'s birthday in 2005.

Secondhand bookstores—_good_ secondhand bookstores—are full of discoveries unexpected and delightful, like a first edition (slightly worn at the corners) of David Spenser's last novel. Aziraphael's bookstore is an excellent one of this type, containing as it does one of the most extensive personal collection of apocolyptic texts extant, and having been on the same site since the invasion of Britain. (By the Picts.)

A.J. Crowley was well used to this uncanny property the bookshop had (he had first consciously noticed it in 1721 and had always assumed it to be a sort of continuous miracle Aziraphael had arranged Upstairs) and when he left Aziraphael, fiddling with the knob on the radio, to poke into corners, he was not surprised to find a leather-bound collection of maps from 1387. He was surprised, upon turning back to the crackling static behind the till, to see Aziraphael in a shaft of dusty sunlight, and to realize that he was staring.

The angel looked like his portrait at Vezelay (North-West Chapel, window 6, top panel, Angel Receiving Instruction to Bless Lord Thomas of this Bishopric) and the beautific smile as Vivaldi became distinct from the buzz and hum was much like sunlight itself. Crowley wondered dumbly why he had never noticed that peculiar quality of Aziraphael's smile before, and decided to worry about that later, preferably in the company of a large quantity of alcohol (Crowley had recently discovered a fondness for minature airline wines; he couldn't remember _entirely_ coming up with those, but was certain Aziraphael hadn't had a hand in it) (he was wrong; they had been all Aziraphael's idea, meant to encourage familial bonds in an alcoholic who was deathly afraid of flying) and he set the maps down and flicked off the dust that settled on his cuffs.

"Look what I found," he said, and Aziraphael opened his eyes.

Had they really always been that blue? Surely he would have seen. "Oh, my dear!" He lifted the cover, fingers splayed gently along the edge. "Come out of that shadow, I can hardly see you. Look, the Pillars of Heracles, and they're—mmm." He turned the page carefully, and Crowley let a finger trail through the dust on the shelf next to him.

"What is it?" Aziraphael asked.

Of all the times for him to suddenly become perceptive, Crowley thought. "Nothing," he said.

"Really," Aziraphael said. The word was sharp and crisp at the edges; only someone who had known him for six millenia would have noticed; meaning only Crowley. (Other angels didn't count; they were utterly tone-deaf; one of the major reasons Crowley had been so easily persuaded to Fall was that he had a rather good sense of music, and 'hallelujah' _ad infinitum_, as all things were in Heaven, in D-major gave him a headache within a few million years. 'Gloria' wasn't much better.)

"Really," he insisted.

"Of course," Aziraphael agreed blandly. "Tea?" It was one of the few constants in the Arrangement. The others were tempting, on Crowley's part; thwarting, on Aziraphael's; and ducks, on St. James Park's. Tea had begun around the same time as the Arrangement itself had, and so was an honourary participant.

"Lemon, thanks," Crowley said. Aziraphael nodded.

"I know."

Of course he knew. One thing about hanging about the same chap for a few thousand years, you do get familiar with his tastes and such. He hadn't noted if Aziraphael would be open to kissing him, though, not yet—must do that—and you would think that Aziraphael would at least have managed to learn the difference between Pink Floyd and Franz Ferdinand, but—"Sorry?"

"I said, take a seat." Aziraphael's face was blurred by the steam rising off the teacups and Crowley shifted the straight-back chair, glaring at it until a cushion miracled onto the seat. A cushion with pale pink roses on it, but one can't have everything. He straddled it, and leaned his arms onto the back.

"Where'd you get that?" he asked, flicking his tongue at the book; so much more demonstrative, and flexible, than a tilted head. Humans didn't know what they were missing, he thought smugly. Really, these bodies were all right as far as they went, but where they went, in general, was Hell. (Where bodies were worse than useless, except for the demons's purposes.)

"Goodness," Aziraphael murmured, "I don't remember, but it is a lovely thing, isn't it?"

"Did you covet it, angel?" Crowley teased.

"Don't be absurd," Aziraphael said, and that tension was still in his voice. "I am, as you pointed out, an _angel_. We can't sin. It's not in our nature."

"Lucifer Fell," Crowley said mildly, picking up his teacup.

"_That_," Aziraphael replied, "was ineffable, as you well know."

"All right." He took a sip of tea. Aziraphael really did make a splendid cuppa; it was no wonder he was constantly mistaken for an Englishman. The Vivaldi was nearly over, and he had the strange feeling that the apocalypse would be upon them once more when the violins died away. And those maps would be of no help in escaping.

"D'you really think so?" he asked.

"I don't _think_ so," Aziraphael said. "It is so. Everything's ineffable. I'm not made to think. I'm made to worship."

"Made to? Does that mean you don't want to? Sounds kinky."

"Blast it, Crowley, you know what I mean. You were an angel, once."

"A very long time ago," Crowley reminded him. "And then I Fell."

"Sauntered," Aziraphael muttered.

"Bloody good saunter, too," Crowley agreed. "First one ever." (It was. The second was in 1527, by a young man Crowley had never met, and never would, a monk in eastern China. That's ineffability for you.) He grinned. Aziraphael made a strangled sound and put down his cup, with such deliberate care that it made Crowley's breath (when had he started _breathing_?) catch in his throat. "Think sauntering is ineffable?" he asked blithely.

"Don't ask me," Aziraphael said. "I don't have to comprehend ineffability to obey it."

"Blind faith," Crowley said. "Sounds kinky. Blindfolded, or --" he was cut off by Aziraphael's mouth pressing onto his. It tasted slightly of dust and lemon, and Crowley brought his hands up, whether to push Aziraphael away or pull him closer he wasn't sure, and his thumb brushed across the hollow of his throat.

His pulse was racing.

When had Aziraphael gotten a pulse?

"Faith," Aziraphael said, his lips barely touching Crowley's, "is not blind. You are blind. You are blind, and deaf, and dumb, Crowley, and for all your skill at tempting humans, you don't have even the slightest idea that we've been tempting each other for centuries." He leaned back, and Crowley realized one distinct advantage to human bodies, as messy and inconvenient and stiff as they were.

Every good bookshop is full of unexpected, confusing, glorious surprises, and Aziraphael's is an excellent bookshop.


End file.
